Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Pluria Marshall, Jr. and the Wave Commun...

Fairchild, Gregory...

Case

Pluria Marshall, Jr. and the Wave Community Newspapers

Fairchild, Gregory B.; Stunson, Charles; Yemen, Gerry

ENT-0012 | Published August 30, 2001 | 29 pages Case

Collection: Darden School of Business

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This case explores the challenge of creating and sustaining entrepreneurship in the very competitive newspaper industry. The case also opens channels to discuss techniques for managing costs in urban environments. Pluria Marshall Jr., president of Marshall Media, is offered an opportunity to purchase the Wave Community Newspapers, a 13-newspaper chain. The Los Angeles Times had decided to pass on the deal, which bothers Marshall. He had thought that the Times's strategy was to merge the Wave with the Times's own weekly neighborhood paper to better serve the ethnically diverse and segregated neighborhoods of greater Los Angeles. The trigger issue focuses on whether Marshall Media is capable of competing against the resources of the much larger Los Angeles Times to capture the market share of L.A.'s Latino and African-American communities.